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Is 20 Years Enough?

Heidi Gatty — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 04:19:00 +0000

I attended my 20 year high school reunion this weekend. It was crazy and more than a little surreal. High school is such a strange transitional time. You move from barely being a teenager to almost being an adult, with none of the self-directed growth you can do in college. Basically, you are thrown together with a lot of people you probably would never have chosen. And all together, you must survive four years of education that will shape the rest of your life.

I was a high school misfit. I think most of us are. For most people, it is the first chance we have to play at being adults. We play at relationships and personality traits the same way we play at make-up and hair styles, trying things on for fit. If you are lucky, you find a group of people who accept you as you are (or as you are pretending to be on that day), and you learn and grow and morph and run away to college.

For me, those people were in theater. Our drama troupe was called Company and we were largely a group of people who just didn’t fit anywhere else. I think many Company members walked in several circles and really, isn’t it the nature of drama that we can be chameleons? I never felt like I had a lot of ability to move around socially when I was in high school, and I wouldn’t say that it was all wine and roses, but I had good friends across many years and I had really hoped to see some of them this weekend.

Nope. Most of the folks I really liked in high school, those I was closest to, were not at the reunion. That’s the other thing about arty types, we’re not really joiners. So, I had a couple of glasses of wine, a couple of surprising conversations, and left with my husband, my oldest friend, and my dignity.

SXSW Really? Yes.

Heidi Gatty — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 16:59:00 +0000

I recently developed a proposal for SXSW with Deldelp Medina, one of the smartest people I know. If you knew my friends, you would know that this is really saying something. Our proposal is about the confluence of stereotypes that keeps people like us – Latinos of our generation – out of leadership, power and influence. You can read more about it at the SXSW panel picker.

Family and friends keep asking why. Why this, why here, why now.

Representation. My views and perspective, in all their complicated glory, are not out there. I don’t see or hear anyone like me when I turn on the TV or radio.
Discourse. My views ARE complicated and complex. I think this is true for most people in this country and we do ourselves a disservice by buying into the way we play politics from a divisive single-issue perspective.
Leadership. I have been working my way into leadership in so many aspects of my life and it can be a struggle. This is one way to take it. And truthfully, it’s the hardest part because it involves a kind of self-promotion that I struggle with and thought I left behind a long time ago.

So, check out our proposal: From Dot Com-y to Altmamí. If you like it, vote for us.

Join our conversation on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/altmamis

You can also follow us on Twitter @smbrowngirl and @deldelp

If you want to hear from Deldelp, check her out http://latinainca.tumblr.com

What Is a Soul?

Heidi Gatty — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 02:19:00 +0000

Sitting down to dinner tonight and the following exchange greeted me:

Miss Thing: Mommy, is a soul blue? What is a soul?

The Husband: I want to hear the answer to this…

Me (taking my time chewing to try to compose something of a satisfactory answer to my 6 year old daughter): No, I don’t think a soul is blue. Some people think that a soul is the thing that makes people different from animals. A soul lets us think, reason, and love.

Miss Thing: Is that all?

Me: That’s enough. A soul is what lets us love. Without a soul, you wouldn’t be able to love mommy.

Kisses and a quick snuggle and then dinner returned to all its mundane glory. In the kitchen I asked The Husband what he thought of my answer, and he told me I deserved a philosophy prize…something like The Cracked Nut.

What is a soul? If my daughter was older, I would tell her it is a spark of divinity. The eternal within all of us – the thing that is unbreakable, that animates our poor carcasses of flesh for this all too brief sojourn. As I think about it now, I wonder what is divinity, what can it possibly be BUT love?

Once in a while, mommy gets it right. Now where is that Cracked Nut award?

Bellatrix is Back

Heidi Gatty — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 04:03:00 +0000

My 12 year old god-daughter, Ariel, was diagnosed with cancer over 3 years ago. No run of the mill cancer for her, she got a very rare, very deadly form called rhabdo-myosarcoma. After an 11 month course of treatment, she was given the pronouncement “no evidence of disease”. Cancer families know that to say “cure” or “remission” is to tempt fate. NED is the moniker that is most meaningful in the initial post-treatment years.

Ari is precocious and smart, and a huge Harry Potter fan. She dubbed her cancer Bellatrix and fought with her family by her side and beat the crap out of cancer…until today. It appears Bellatrix wants a rematch. I am stunned. We are all stunned. Her mother and I have been causing trouble together for almost 20 years. We are family and my aching heart does not know what to do.

I find myself thinking about God and faith today. I suppose there is nowhere else to turn when the unthinkable becomes manifest. I am vacillating between two wildly different notions of the divine. The first defies anyone who believes in a personal, interested God – a God who gets involved in the mundane of our lives. How could such a God do this terrible thing to my Ariel…AGAIN! The other is a benevolent and merciful force of the universe – a God who is manifest in life itself. A God that I thank for my daughters as I kiss them and snuggle them as I put them to bed. But even this God makes me want to shake my fist at the sky and rage.

The thing about cancer, at least the thing that is so present for me right now, is how helpless we are against it. How little we can DO to make it better, to help those we love with this horrible disease, and how little we can do for their families and loved ones. Our mutual friends are asking me what they can do…and the only think I can say in this moment is: pray.

Hello 2010

Heidi Gatty — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:45:00 +0000

Welcome 2010. You with your fresh promise, your mid-term elections, continued economic recovery and hope for full equality. Welcome to new challenges, old friends and new beginnings.

This year, I will be trying to find a voice and rhythm for this blog. Expect postings that are personal, political and just plain random. Up to now I’ve managed only a handful of posts in just over two years. I’ve tried to keep my thoughts at a pretty high level and have waited until moved to write. Well 2010, you may be subject to my mental diarrhea. So, apologies in advance for my flights of fancy, stories of baby poop and half baked political analysis.

Thanks for playing. Let the random thoughts begin!

Wow

Heidi Gatty — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:50:00 +0000

President-elect Obama.

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. I can’t say that I never thought I would see this day. I’m not sure if I ever really entertained the notion at all, but not because I had given the matter any thought. It’s possible that I never entertained the notion because it was so far-fetched. It’s possible that I never entertained the notion because I never dreamed of being president myself…and for me, I don’t think that is a function of not having role models, it’s more likely a function of my personality and pragmatism.

Back to history. There isn’t really anything I can say that hasn’t been said already by others. It was an incredibly emotional evening that put an end to a day of collective anxiety and breath-holding that I’ve certainly never experienced before. Even as the magic number of 270 was reached and passed, we didn’t really believe the results until we saw John McCain emerge to give his concession speech to kick off an evening of amazing speeches. McCain’s speech felt like an honest attempt at moving beyond the election together. I had to wonder where he had been these last few months and how much deeper and productive of a dialog we might have had if this man had been present.

On Religion, Part One

Heidi Gatty — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:42:00 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about religion lately. I was raised Catholic and at some point in high school really keyed into the hypocrisy of the Church, from Papal indulgences on down the line. Also, there is a part of the mass right before the sacrament of the Eucharist, that’s communion for the uninitiated, where the congregation says: “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.” Not worthy? I remember actually hearing that line for the first time after almost two decades of mindlessly mouthing the words and thinking, how can I not be worthy? We’re either “God’s children” or we’re not, right? Suffice it to say, my church going days were numbered.

Fast forward some years to my wedding. My husband and I, both Catholic, decided not to get married in the Church. You see, when you get married in the Catholic Church, you have to attend Pre-Cana classes. The name comes from Jesus’ first public miracle, turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana. It’s a weekend retreat for young Catholic couples where you spend some time really digging in and asking each other important questions about the rest of your life, kind of like pre-wedding couple’s counseling. Not a bad idea for any two people getting ready to make a lifetime commitment.

Here’s the thing, part of Catholic doctrine involves children and birth control. You’re supposed to be open to the possibility of children whenever God sees fit to give them to you. (What with all the poverty and war going on in the world, God’s got a lot of time to worry about your uterus, but I digress.) You’re also supposed to commit to raising your gaggle of children in the faith. Now, my parents have invested me with some pretty upstanding values, and I have no trouble acknowledging that many of these values came from the Church. Something I value deeply is my word – so you might see why I was not interested in starting the rest of my life making promises I had no intention of keeping.

A small s#@*storm promptly ensued from all sides of our families including some letter writing with a family member who was advised that she should not even attend a wedding that was not going to be sanctioned by the church. This forced my to really think about my position on god/faith/spirituality, what I really believe, and that I really believe in something.

there’s a first time for everything

Heidi Gatty — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 03:14:00 +0000

someone recently suggested to me that i should start a blog. i have to confess that i don’t read a lot of blogs so i don’t really get the rules here. i think ranting is generally involved, but i don’t feel much like ranting just now.

i’m not sure why we are so interested in the mundane details of other’s lives…
are we really so starved for voyeuristic entertainment that it is necessary to read about someone’s pathetic and inconsequential day at work? i have my own inconsequential job, thank-you-very-much and if something of consequence happens you will likely be the last to know.

i’m sure that reality tv plays into this somehow. something about the way we consume entertainment. and when i say consume, i mean it in the most destructive, rampant, thorsten veblen type of conspicuous way.

welcome voyeurs. we’ll see how i feel about posting into the ether of the worldwide web.